Obama's First 100 Days--The Black Agenda Report Card

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun May 03, 2009 at 20:00


With all the "100 Day" talk of late, I thought it would be both refreshing and constructive to consider the Black Agenda Report Card on Obama's First 100 Days.  This is from Bruce A. Dixon, who is also an occasional commentator on Open Left.

The Report Card evaluates 18 categories, items, with points assigned as follows:

1. Health Care Reform (9 points)
2. Creating New Jobs and Preserving Old Ones (5 points)
3. Fully Funding and Preserving Public Education (6 points)
4. War & Peace (9 points)
5. Transportation (5 points)
6. Caribbean and Latin America (4 points)
7. Obama's Africa Policy; Our Brotherman and the Motherland (5 points)
8. Wall Street Bailout (6 points)
9. Debt and Foreclosure Crises (6 points)
10. Investigating Bush-era Crimes (5 points)
11. Criminalizing Immigration, Militarizing the Border (5 points)
12. Broadband For Everyone and a Just and Fair Media (5 points)
13. Environment (5 points)
14. Agricultural Policy, and Policy Toward Black Farmers (5 points)
15. Mass imprisonment (5 points)
16. Employee Free Choice Act (5 points)
17. Urban Policy (5 points)
18. Privatization of Government Agencies and Services (5 points)

Brief excerpts of each item, with scores assigned and some comments by me on the flip. This is, of course, no substitute for reading the full original.  Hopefully it will whet some appetites.  

Paul Rosenberg :: Obama's First 100 Days--The Black Agenda Report Card
1. Health Care Reform
...

President Obama himself declared that we should judge his first term on whether we get a national health care plan. While the exact specs of the Obama campaign have not been formally introduced, it's been no secret for a couple years now that Barack Obama and his advisors abhor any form of Medicare-For-All or single payer health care.

...

Obama's series of regional health care "summits," although billed as the chance to get input from all the relevant have pointedly excluded any voices for single payer health care....

Five points for admitting health care is a human right, minus one for suppressing discussion of single payer. Four out of nine.

As one would expect, BAR focuses on the essentials.  No wonky mess[ing with your mind].  The scoring might be a bit generous, however.  

2. Creating New Jobs and Preserving Old Ones
....

What we see is a failure of imagination on the part of the Obama administration. Not only does the First Black President declare it's the job of the private sector, never government, to create jobs, a stand closer to Herbert Hoover than to Franklin Roosevelt --- his "stimulus packages" have refused to fully fund the operations of local and state governments.

....
One point out of five for the Obama rhetoric on green jobs, and the $10 billion directed toward high speed rail..

It's astonishing how few people ever even mention the failure to fully fund state and local governments, given how devastating--and totally avoidable--the resulting cuts are to the nation's economy.  It's expected that BAR would do better.


3. Fully Funding and Preserving Public Education
There is no good news here....
.
No Child Left Behind, the bipartisan corporate Bush era "education reform," which allows schools and entire districts to be threatened with closure and privatization, seems destined to remain intact for the forseeable future under an Obama administration.
Zero points here of a possible six.

Again, BAR sees the obvious, which everyone else ignores.  Is there an emerging theme here?


4. War and Peace
From 2003 onward, Barack Obama staked his political career on conveying to voters the impression that he opposed the war in Iraq, while vigorously signalling to the bipartisan foreign policy establishment that he was really one of them. By early 2008 Obama closed the circle, openly endorsing the Bush "surge" and war aims in Iraq....

The president says he will talk to Iran, which is worth a point, but continues the Bush policy of threatening Russia with NATO expansion right up to its borders, which takes away the single point.
Zero out of nine points.

Is anyone from MoveOn reading this?


5. Transportation
After more than a half century of disinvestment, the US passenger rail network is the laughing stock of the developed world....
The initial investment of $10 billion, apparently pushed at the president's personal initiative is a modest start, with the potential to create tens of thousands of new jobs, though not right away. Obama probably knows that $100 billion over his first term would be a minimally reasonable down payment on a world class passenger rail network, which will be cheaper and more sustainable than America's dependence on highways and air travel....
Four points out of five.

6. Caribbean and Latin America
....

Obama deserves a half point for shaking hands with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and another half point for not striking the usual full frontal crudity pose toward Cuba at the inter-American summit earlier this month....

The brutal occupation of Haiti by a US financed proxy force of so-called peacekeepers, also continues unmentioned by the US press, and unremarked upon by the Obama administration.
Lots of room for improvement here.
One and a half points out of four.

The occupation of Haiti is one of the biggest indicators of what real change would look like in America's foreign policy.  BAR is quite right to highlight it.


7. Obama's Africa Policy: Our Brotherman and the Motherland
Nobody who thinks half a minute about it imagines that the militarization of Africa, and of US policy toward Africa is a good thing. It has been US policy for more than two decades. Among the bipartisan designers of this policy are Obama's top foreign policy advisors including Madeline Albright and Susan Rice. You can look awfully hard for some good news in Obama's policy toward Africa so far, and find no reason for optimism.
We'll give him one point out of five anyway, for no good reason. Call it hope.


8. Bailing Out Wall Street
....
Not a single economist, regulator, or financial analyst who predicted the bursting of the bubble economy, and there were many, has been hired by Obama's financial gurus, and every financial policy seems aimed at rescuing speculators rather than the American people....
Zero points out of six.

Cuts right to the heart of the matter.

9. Debt and Foreclosure Crises
....
Until there is a commitment on the part of the Obama administration to lower interest rates on current and new consumer, mortgage, and student loans, to restricting interest rates in future lending, and a restoration of bankruptcy laws that enable individuals to liquidate their debt and start anew, we cannot give Barack Obama any more than a single hopeful point out of six.

It sure would be nice if Obama paid 1/10th the attention he pays to basketball to the history of the New Deal, especially seeing as how he's not about to coach any team in championship setting anytime soon.


10. Investigatng the Bush Era Crimes
....
The Obama vision of reconciliation without truth incentivizes further violations of law on the part of government, If there were negative points, we would award them here.
Zero out of five.

Boy howdy!


11. Criminalizing Immigration and Militarizing the Border
....
Obama gets one point for rhetoric, and another point for not deploying troops to the border.
Two out of five.

The scoring is a sad commentary on the state of immigration politics.  But unfortunately, it's realistic.


12. Broadband For Everyone, Low Power Radio, and a Just and Fair Media
One of the administration's professed goals is the extension of broadband availability to underserved rural and urban areas. The designation of $7 billion for this purpose, and the nomination of former FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to supervise its dispensation is a promising start....

The administration says it is for network neutrality, and has not opposed low power FM radio as far as we know. Its position on media consolidation and the future of music remain unknown.
Two points awarded here for substance, and one for hope.
Three out of five.


13. Environment
....
The Obama adminstration gets a single point for talking up fuel economy standards and green jobs, with another thrown in for hope. One [sic-should be two] point out of five.

Me, I'd take away a point for not stopping the legal proceedings against Tim DeChristopher.  But what fun would it be if we agreed on everything?


14. Agricultural Policy, and Policy Toward Black Farmers

.... one of the first acts of Obama's new Secretary of Agriculture was to meet with black farmers of the Southern Federation of Rural Cooperatives. After decades of malign neglect toward African American farmers, a single meeting isn't much, but it's hopeful, worth two points of a possible five.

More hope than I have.  But see my comment on #13 above.


15. Mass Black Imprisonment
.....
If the First Black President cannot grow a pair on this issue, and come out for restorative justice, elimination of disparate penalties, banning of incarceration of juveniles with adults or an end to indeterminate sentencing, he deserves no points. It's tough, it's a high standard, but a fair one.
Zero out of five.

No other country on Earth comes close to our abominable record.  

16. The Employee Free Choice Act
....
On the campaign trail President Obama endorsed the EFCA, but generally, only when asked or when appearing at union halls and labor functions. Since assuming office he has rarely mentioned it....

We are waiting for President Obama to show this leadership. Still waiting.... Two points of a possible five, and slipping.

It's almost as if he doesn't want labor's help in passing his agenda as the months and years go by.


17. Urban Policy
....

We award the Obama administration two points for establishing an office of Urban Policy, and take away one of those for appointing a New York pol with ties to real estate developers to the post.
One out of five.

Seems a fair assessment of a baffling policy.

18. Privatization of Government Agencies and Services Including the Military
....

Vast portions of the nation's intelligence, prisons and military establishments, for example, have been privatized. This is an issue never mentioned by candidate Obama or President Obama, but one vital to the future of any sort of democracy.

Zero points out of five.

Another example of a major issue that BAR is almost alone in noticing.


A hundred days is far too early for anyone to score a hundred points on a list of concerns like these. 55 would have been passing, and 45 a sign of hopes being actually redeemed on some fronts.  But at under 25 out of a possible 100 our First Black President  is at best a chronic underacheiver, as far as the real needs of African Americans go.

And BAR puts to shame virtually the entire known universe of political commentators, on this occassion, as on so many others.

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Obama's First 100 Days--The Black Agenda Report Card | 50 comments
As a person who got in to politics... (4.00 / 9)
...mostly motivated by education policy, I'm willing to grant a bit more leniency on Education at the moment.

Given the state of the economy and the fact that the Education isn't up any time soon (I believe it is a 5 year package just renewed?) and how dangerous the process could be, the first 100 days were not the time to get in to that mess.

For those that don't understand the danger, NCLB is woven in to the entire Education Package, people like Bill Richardson who advocated for "repealing NCLB" had no clue what they were suggesting.  That would be the end of title 1 and title 9 funding, and every other good thing we have fought for over the last 30+ years in education policy.  We would be starting with a blank slate, with Harry Reid holding all the cards in the Senate while Chris Dodd (who has written nearly every piece of good education legislation in whole or part since 1980) and Ted Kennedy are significantly weakened (one politically, one health wise) and the two are also our biggest players on Health Care as well.  

This is a front we are not ready to expand the war to.  If we can make significant progress on health care and energy over the next 100-200 days, the final push before the midterm elections take over completely could be education, or we could be waiting for a weakening of the blue dog caucus / progressive shifting of the house/Senate to push this through in early 2011 (when it is closer to renewal per my memory, which could be wrong, I'm thinking renewed in late 06 or early 07 for 5 more years?)

Thanks for this (4.00 / 2)
This is an issue I don't follow all that closely, although it goes without saying that I should. It's just that the news has been so depressing for so many years. After Clinton got done giving away what was left of the farm, I asked myself if anyone in this entire God-forsaken country had a clue what we were doing to ourselves, or more accurately, to our children and grandchildren. The answer I came up with was so demoralizing that I just turned off the switch and left the room.

I had only myself to blame, of course when I returned ten years later to find things like creationist geology texts in the Grand Canyon gift shop, fundamentalist academies masquerading as charter schools on every street corner in my town, and public school teachers begging in the streets.

God bless folks like you, who've had the guts to stick it out while I was indulging my inner funk. Your counsel of patience seems reasonable. What do you think of our long-term chances?

[ Parent ]
I think if we lose Sens Dodd and Kennedy... (4.00 / 3)
...we are pretty fucked.

Education has approached social security in the "third rail" fears over the last 15-20 years.  Everyone is afraid they are going to get accused of throwing good money after bad.  I haven't seen any of the younger Senators display the acumen and strength on education we see from Dodd and Kennedy.

I LOVE watching Kennedy chairing a committee hearing on an Education bill, he can be half a bottle of scotch in and he still knows more about education policy than anyone who the right puts in the chair to speak.  Sometimes he just plays with the person a bit, gives them a chance to measure out the rope and tie a good strong noose...then he yanks the chair out and moves on to to the next victim.

Dodd is similarly adept, shortly after NCLB was passed, Dodd authored an amending bill that "corrects" NCLB and was quickly endorsed by nearly every major educational authority including the major teachers unions.  It has been stuffed in a drawer ever since, no chance of making the Senate floor in the previous sessions, not likely this session either.

I had a number of education based events with and without Senator Dodd present in Iowa, it is a wonderful thing to see him talking with teachers and able to communicate and truly understand what they face and what they need.

[ Parent ]
Kennedy claims responsibility, next to Bush for NCLB (4.00 / 5)
That's not good.

"If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other people, then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding..."
Zora Neale Hurston
[ Parent ]
I have done some work on education policy too... (4.00 / 7)
In the mid-1980s I was a community organizer in Cabrini-Green, three of the ten poorest census tracts in the country.  One of the prices for electing Harold Washington --- organizers were wise enough a quarter century ago to make our demands of politicians BEFORE we gave up our membership and phone lists to build their campaign machinery --- was to ram through a school reform bill which created elected councils of parents for every Chicago elementary and high school -- with a couple teacher reps.  The Local School Councils had veto power over the annual budgets of individual schools, and over the contracts of principals, which were limited to two years.

My job was to recruit the parents to stand for election and to run the councils in four Cabrini public schools, and to get them the training they needed to assess the performance of teachers and of principals.

I got to see close up how a large section of our black and white elite treat poor black parents, and how little they relish being scrutinized by the folks who should be the primary stakeholders in the picture, the parents.  And I got to see that poor people were not stupid, and were perfectly willing and capable to responsibly exercise power in their own and their childrens' interest. But enough about me.

I got sleepy and sloppy writing the article and failed to include the link to this twenty some minute interview, print and audio, with longtime Chicago teacher and education activist George Schmidt, in which he described the record of Obama's new Secretary of Education.  The link is included now.

But mp, I don't see how you could miss the key points that most critics make on No Child Left Behind

(1) that it sets up unrealistic test improvement goals that no large group of schools has ever attained anywhere.

(2) that it acts to brand these schools "failures" thus discrediting the very concept of public education in the minds of many.

(3) that its main prescribed remedy for "failure" has defunding the public schools and creation of a for-profit private school industry (and lobby)

Now, if you think that privatization is good for education, please DO say that, and we will at least understand each other.  But private property is just that --- private.  Privatizing education is the very opposite of democracy.  It's hard to imagine how you can be for democracy AND the privatization of education.  And NCLB is all about the privatization.

Oh, and thanks, Paul.

"If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other people, then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding..."
Zora Neale Hurston

[ Parent ]
And the final grade is... (0.00 / 0)
All praise to Mr. Dixon for his honest assessment, but this was supposed to be a report card, and yet the letter-grade was very hard to find, although it's perfectly clear in the last paragraph that anything less than 55 was a fail, and considering how far below that minimal level of performance Mr. Obama has actually fallen, the appropriate letter-grade for his Presidency so far would be...


F-



[ Parent ]
You're not "Z"? (0.00 / 0)
Huh.  I just assumed this account was banned and the other was the same person, or something like that.  One seemed to show up soon after you stopped posting.  Strange.

Clicking on your name I see you didn't really stop posting, I just hadn't notice any recently, so clearly I was wronger than I realized.  Oh well, sorry for that.  (Not that you could tell what I was thinking.)

[ Parent ]
"(Not that you could tell what I was thinking.)" (4.00 / 2)
What Mark Matson wasn't thinking is more significant than what he was.

Black Agenda Report made an extraordinarily brave and risky assessment of Obama's performance so far, and it's hard for us white guys to guess exactly how much this article may affect their standing in the black community, but there's obviously a very big downside.

In New York City, the rate of unemployment for black men is nearly 50%, and on the rare occasions when anyone asks Obama a question specifically related to black Americans, he retreats into generalities about a strong economy lifting all boats.

50% unemployment for black men in New York City! And all Obama has to say is..."Wait for the tide to come in!"

So Black Agenda report spoke up for the millions of black Americans who haven't been lifted up into prosperity by the boom times, and are likely to suffer disproportionately in the hard times ahead, and BAR took a significant risk to pop the bubble of unthinking adulation that still surrounds Obama.

All praise again to Bruce A. Dixon for his brave report, and if he didn't quite nail his assessment by adorning it with the letter-grade that Obama deserves, it's still worth supplying, IMHO, because Obama only scored 17 on a scale where 55 was passing, and that is so far down in the failing grades that it deserves...


F-


[ Parent ]
Correction: 22.5 instead of 17. (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
23.5 (0.00 / 0)
What the heck! This thing seems designed to preserve a little ambiguity in the dismal total, and I'm just doing my part.
[ Parent ]
24.5 (0.00 / 0)
Including the "hope" point in 13 Environment that got forgotten in the total.  Not that this changes your grading.
[ Parent ]
I have no love for NCLB. (4.00 / 2)
I have opposed it aggressively in every campaign I worked on.

My point is you cannot repeal it.  You cannot throw it away.  We must REFORM and AMEND the education package to be rid of these viles of NCLB exactly in reverse of how they were inserted.

The whole concept of NCLB was to wipe out public schools and push for privatization and vouchers, I have no doubts about that.

On the other hand, I have no confidence in our current Senate to win fights for Title 1, Title 9 and other special ed funding programs if we have to start over from scratch.  Reform, not repeal.

[ Parent ]
If "a hundred days is far too early for anyone to score a hundred points (4.00 / 2)
on a list of concerns like these," why does the scale go to 100? Obama didn't get 17/100, he got 17/someotherundisclosednumber?

Still, I found it interested that President Obama = President McCain on the following issues:

Public Education
War and Peace
Bailing Out Wall Street
Investigating Bush Era Crimes
Mass Black Imprisonment
Privatization of Gov't, Including the Military

This exercise strikes me as worth exactly as much as to the rest of the 100 Day commentary, actually.

"Obama is bad" - compared to whom? (4.00 / 2)
    It is refreshing to see anyone on the Left being hard on Obama, in comparison to some clear standard. It does take integrity to criticize one's own leaders in public.
   But if you take that too far, you become unrealisitc.
   So, here are some comparisons I would propose:

OBAMA COMPARED TO W - Obama gets an easy A+, basically just for showing up. Bush had the arrogant lawlessness of Nixon, and the "let them eat cake" economic views of Hoover.

OBAMA COMPARED TO MCCAIN - (Same as above.)

OBAMA COMPARED TO CLINTON - I am not sure. At the time, I trusted Clinton on NAFTA, but now I have second thoughts. Clinton tried for health care reform in year one, and then never tried again. If Obama makes ANY progress on health care reform, he will be the best president in the last 30 years on health care. However, Clinton balanced the budget and paid down debt every year, like clockwork. So I will leave this unscored. If Obama gives us health care reform but higher debt, I will score Obama as about a "C".

OBAMA COMPARED TO NADER, KUCINICH, OR FDR - Each of those three men had an equal chance of being elected in 2008... and FDR has been dead for several decades. So can I really even score this one?

   On the topic of FDR, he ran as a pragmatic moderate, and compared to others (such as Huey Long), FDR WAS only a moderate.
   We need to accept the fact that Obama is a moderate. IF we can generate enormous grassroots pressure for policies we favor (such as HR 676), then Obama may not veto those policies. So Obama may not be a real progressive... but the mere fact that he will not fight us tooth and nail means that he is the best occupant of the White House for the past 8 years... and perhaps for the past 30. So I think the Obama glass is "half full".

Luke 12:48 "to whom much is given, of him shall much be required". Would Jesus want progressive taxation, or regressive taxation?

[ Parent ]
As I Have Said Many Times Before (4.00 / 6)
BAR is perhaps one of the best leftist sites on the web. You wouldn't dare find this time of commentary on the first black president in the pages of Jet, Ebony, Essence or Vibe. Those "urban" mags spend more time discussing the Obamas' family dog and their designer clothes rather than analyzing in detail whether Obama's policies will be helpful to working people.  
Regardless of how some of those other publications (4.00 / 3)
may present themselves, that's not really an useful comparison. It'd be like comparing The Nation to People Magazine or Cosmopolitan, and finding the latter two lacking.  
[ Parent ]
True (4.00 / 2)
But I do believe that Obama has given some of those publications I've mentioned White House access, particularly access to press briefings. Those publications also interviewed  many black academics, some of which have written articles in such publications (e.g., Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West, Bell Hooks, Angela Davis -- Lerone Bennett Jr. is the managing editor of Ebony). You're right, these publications are similiar to People and Cosmopolitan, but unlike those magazines, these publications also touch on politics and how some policies effect black communities. So in this respect that makes them also comparable to Newsweek and Time. In this regard they can be criticized, especially since they reach a wider black audience than a site like BAR.

[ Parent ]
I agree with you on that (4.00 / 3)
they all do touch on some serious issues, which is why I qualified my response. But unlike BAR, none of those publications have as their stated first priority hardcore political analysis and discussion of political impacts on the Black Community. Hell, even magazines like Cosmo will have occasional articles on serious subjects such as domestic violence. But Cosmo's not pretending to be anything other than what it is, and neither is Jet or Essence. Anyway, that's why I said it's not really an useful comparison.

We can probably both agree that it's unfortunate that publications like BAR or Black Commentator can't be found on the newsstands; or that the popular magazine targeted for Black people are so weak on politics and heavy on fluff.

[ Parent ]
I Totally Agree With You There (4.00 / 7)
Most of my family members are subscribers to Jet, Essence, Ebony, etc., but the moment I mention BAR or Black Commentator, I get blank stares -- and these are people who are internet users! It's not so much that politically they wouldn't agree with the writers at BAR and Black Commentator (even though in some instances they can be labeled culturally conservative, and many of them are huge Obama supporters to the point where I can't have a single conversation with them without being pegged a "hater"), it's just that, as you noted, publications like BAR and BC aren't in newsstands where they can reach a wider audience.

Just take Vibe, for example. Vibe pretty much markets itself as the urban alternative to Rolling Stone, but you'll never get the type of political analysis one finds at Vibe that one can find at Rolling Stone. There's no Matt Taibbi at Vibe. It's really sad because with so many young blacks becoming interested in politics due to Obama's election, there's not a single mainstream black political magazine I can think of that caters to such audience, offering vigorous debates on the pros and cons of Obama's policies. I guess I brought up magazines like Jet and Ebony because there was a time where these magazines were at the forefront of offering its black audience such substance (e.g. Jet was famous for covering extensively the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement), and maybe I'm frustrated with these publications downward spiral.

[ Parent ]
This is the most objective assessment of his performance thus far IMO (4.00 / 4)
I'm shocked at these folks that give him high marks.  It can only be almost entirely based upon rhetoric.  So what the hell do they do ... listen only to his speeches and never substiantiate if he actually does what he says?  Or are they grading him on a "no president left behind" standard and comparing him to a baseline of the abominible bush ... the worst president in our nation's history?  That's my guess.  

I've also lost a lot of respect for a fair amount of progressives who criticize him and then end it with a "yeah, but" and then give them a high grade for his first 3 months.  And these are smart people too so that's doubly disappointing and it just shows you how many progressives have their head thoroughly embedded up the donkey's ass ... and how far embedded it is.  So drop the progressive label, quit your token bitching like you actually own some semblance of principles and face it:  you are nothing more than demo-zombies essentially willing to bitch but back any democratic president.  And worse yet:  you got no Plan B ... none ... and neither are you willing to start the hard work of constructing one.

This does not apply to all here obviously and the writer of this essay ... who I have a ton of respect for ... is the most notable exception.  I also have a lot of respect for David Sirota but I think he's way overinflated his grades thus far on obama and I think deep down he knows he has becoz he is too smart and objective not to.  

Z

Yes, its the "Barak IL Jong" crowd (4.00 / 1)

[ Parent ]
You can find them (4.00 / 3)
over at DKOS on any given day. So maybe we're not that different from the mindless people who voted for Bush with so much enthusiasm.

I guess that's a warning to all of us: not to be mindless in either praise or criticism.

I was big for the guy, I want to support him, but so far its a lot of talk and small changes...and the sad thing is that he's mildly better than Congress.

After the Clinton years and Bush years, I just have zero tolerance for "New Dem" BS.

[ Parent ]
The democrats and republicans really are quite alike in their allegiance to party over principle (0.00 / 0)
I've about had it with both sides of the same sorry coin.  I had it with my friends ... and family ... that voted for bush twice and refused to admit the error in their ways.  There is something morally deficient with them IMO.  

The dummycrats that backed bill clinton through all sorts of sell-outs of working americans like nafta, deregulation, exporting jobs, importing h1-b visa holders (raising the limits substantially after saying that he wouldn't), the welfare reform, backing a strong dollar policy that also assisted in facilitating many manufacturing jobs leaving this country, etc., etc., etc. disgusted me too.  And as soon as I would tell them that clinton was a terrible president ... which he was IMO while still being an order of magnitude better than the abominable bush ... the first thing out of their mouth was "it was only sex" ... like fucking parakeets ... like that's the only reason that you could possibly not like bill clinton.  I could give a fuck about the lewinsky thing, it was the other, more substantial, things that disgusted me about him.

But anyway ... I had thought some of my dummycrat friends had found their way when they repudiated the clintons and backed obama instead.  Mind you that they never repudiated them when bill was in office.  But I thought that maybe they had discovered the errors in their ways and looked at all the problems we had and could see some link between them and the corporate sell-out whore president that preceded our last complete fucking criminal corporate sell-out whore president.  But no, I was wrong.  They are back smiling and happy while they get sold out once again.  It's pathetic.  It's just as bad as sports fandom, but only worse and more damaging.  They feel like their team won when the democrats won, but in reality they ain't got no team ... no one represents them.  They are only being used and abused.  It's sort of similar to if their home sports team won a championship and then celebrated by pissing on the paying audience.  These dumbasses would try to get close to them to actually get pissed on and then probably open their mouths as well to get a swill of it.

So, I'm pretty close to dishing my democrat friends as well ... it's all too familiar, it never ends ... becoz these people too put party before principle.  And what they end up doing is losing their principles and with it goes their morality.

Z

[ Parent ]
Undoing Damage (4.00 / 8)
If I wanted to give Obama points, I'd add a category for Undoing Damage done by the Bushies, the midnight regulations adopted in December and January, that sort of stuff.

I'd say the Category was worth, oh, 8 points and give Obama 6 for rolling back a lot of regs. But why are Bush's US DAs still in office, including those who apparently followed Karl Rove's instructions and sent Don Siegelman and Paul Minor to jail? And why has Obama followed Bush's legal team in arguing for the Divine Right of Presidents to keep secrets out of the courts even if everybody already knows the truth, and other ugliness?

There's so much timidity, alas, from a President coming off a huge election victory, with high approval ratings, and an opposition in disarray. Timidity where it is so unnecessary. For Cuban policy the best we can get is to allow rights to Cuban Americans that the rest of us mere Americans don't enjoy, namely the right to travel there? And laughing off the surging support for marijuana law reform, when he could easily blandly say, Maybe we need to look into some new approaches. The economy continues to crash, the people voted for change, we need bold leadership, and we get timidity.

Thanks to Black Agenda Report for keeping it real.

At some point you need to factor in realistic expectations... (4.00 / 5)
Anyone who thought Obama was a strong left progressive during the campaign, from the early days of Iowa to the height of Obama v Clinton to the GE, was quite simply in a fantasy world.

I like President Obama, I liked Senator Obama, each time I met or spoke with him I found him to be a bright man with a brilliant future.  I never confused him with the strong liberal the media and the right declared him to be.  When Richardson declared his energy plan to be the most aggressive, the Iowa media was quick to recognize it was not, coming well short of Chris Dodd's plan, and they used about half a column inch to clear that up - on page D6.  On the front page was 3/4 of a page of Obama's energy plan, with raving reviews of a basically detail free plan.  The remaining 1/4 page was divided between Clinton and Edwards similar plans.  The left made no push back on this, instead embracing the Obama plan as brilliant.  It was brilliant, politically, just not very progressive.

You can go through issue by issue and you will find there was no issue that Obama was the "most progressive" of the six serious candidates, I don't know that he made the top 2 on any major issue.  His only cred was being against the Iraq war from the beginning, which he wielded masterfully while failing to demonstrate leadership on the supplemental funding bill for Iraq.

So how does his score stack up when you account for him not being a real "left progressive"?  I'd say he is doing pretty well overall.  I don't know, C? + or -?

My expectations are further diminished by my perception of the Senate as a zone devoid of progressive strength currently.  How can we expect him to pass any progressive legislation with those folks watering everything down to garbage?  On the other hand, I expect him to lead, I expect him to have the courage to stand up and say "Senator Reid this is not the legislation we asked for, this is not the solution the people need."  Wouldn't it be nice?

[ Parent ]
Replacing a wingnut with a centrist is progress (4.00 / 7)
However, believing that the centrist is a progressive is an impediment to further progress.

[ Parent ]
In the presidency, absolutely. (4.00 / 2)
I worked hard to help the OFA campaign, spending signficant time in VA, FL and OH (Where i finished the campaign doing election protection for Kilroy/Obama in Columbus).

But the statement is not true in Congress/Senate.  If you have the majority, staunch opponents are better than moderates/centrists.

[ Parent ]
If you read the original article, I think I addressed that... (4.00 / 10)
It's right here in the second paragraph...
Should We Grade President Obama on What He Promised, or on What People Need?
The answer to this should be easy. It all depends on whether we imagine government derives its authority from the blessedness of anointed men and women in office, or whether legitimacy comes from the informed consent of the governed. Most of us who were not home schooled learned it the latter way: governments are legit only insofar as they serve the people. Limiting the scope of a report card to what politicians promise confers upon them the power to lock down our collective imagination and deny our hunger and thirst for justice before we can even express it.

We have a right to demand justice because it's just, not because Obama promised it.  We would have that right even if he promised nothing.  Our right to justice does not go away when politicians fail to see the need to promise it.

"If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other people, then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding..."
Zora Neale Hurston
[ Parent ]
I don't disagree we have a right to demand justice... (4.00 / 5)
...and leadership.

But we shouldn't be disappointed when we get what we bought.

The package contents didn't list single payer health care or prosecution of the bush justice dept, we shouldn't be shocked to find out those things aren't inside.

And how dare you be so damn eloquent.  (that is snark, yes.)  I enjoyed your article and thank you for joining the discussion here.

[ Parent ]
I think there's still another way to curve the grade (4.00 / 5)
beyond the two you've mentioned.

And that is to grade a candidate not against what he promised, and not, at what may be the other extreme of what is good, right, and just for the people (which may in certain cases be beyond realistic political possibility), but rather against the opportunity for change presented by the given election cycle.

Even under this somewhat more forgiving curve, Obama has performed pretty much as you have evaluated him. This election and term truly was the moment -- perhaps unique to many of our lifetimes --  when progressive change could have been pushed very hard by a political leader who had the desire to bring it to pass.

It's the failure of Obama to do that -- which could easily have been foretold by the very positions he took in his campaign -- that is, to me, most deeply disappointing in his performance.

I don't see how we ever get that opportunity back.  

[ Parent ]
Justice delayed (4.00 / 4)
I agree with mb that your article is damned eloquent. It's also the most clear-eyed and succinct analysis I've seen to date of President Obama's first hundred days in office.

I don't know what Obama sees when he looks at the present state of the country; what I see, I'm sorry to say, is The Wire. So much potential squandered, so many people doing the wrong things when the right things wouldn't be that much harder to get behind. I keep thinking about McNulty's comment when he finds the Wealth of Nations on Stringer Bell's bookshelf: Who've we been chasing here?

Who indeed.

[ Parent ]
But we need to raise our expectations (4.00 / 5)
Much of a politician's work is about lower voter's expectations. Our job is to raise them.

BTW: think if the GOP had the numbers we do in the House & Senate, and a Republican had won the White House.

It's been 100 days.

Do me a comparison/contrast. Would we even recognize the country we live in?

[ Parent ]
. (4.00 / 3)
Well, i think people somewhat dispute grades that are done on a policy preference basis rather then a results basis. Of course, we don't really know any results, which is what makes the 100 day bench mark laughable in the first place. But take for instance the first criteria. It's possible to get universal healthcare without single payer. See: Germany, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. So it's strange to knock Obama for pursuing an non single payer route. Setting the debate is important to include varied opinions, but universal affordable healthcare is MORE important. I'm not one for rhetorical victories.

But outside of that quibble with your grading preference (which is your prerogative in the first place), the only thing I openly dispute is the environment and green jobs grades. I really don't know much more Obama could have already done on that front in 100 days.

Perspective (4.00 / 4)
I find these scores fairly accurate, but don't find them all that bad.  Compared to those that call this FAIL, I tried to figure out why -- how is my perspective different?  Then I realized the implied scoring is not 0 to X, but -X to X with 0 maintaining the status quo.  

The assumption is Obama will/should fix the these problems and points "taken away" clearly represent negative scoring.  Even a 1 represents positive movement in the correct direction, if only by a marginal amount.  Openly allowing negatives in final scores wouldn't alter these totals much if any; clearly, Bush or probably McCain would get negatives in most of the categories.

So, on a real scale of -100 to +100 Obama gets 24.5.  That sounds about right.

I actually came to the same conclusion, (4.00 / 3)
a few hours after reading this. I think it addressed my bafflement regarding the 'scale', which goes to 100 yet acknowledges that 100 is impossible.

Zero is not 'bad', but 'nothing.' From - 100 (invades N. Korea and dismantles Department of Education and adds thumbscrews to our torture regimen) to +100 (implements single-player healthcare, nonviolent regime change in Haiti to a healthy democracy), a 24.5 (apparently my addition is not good: I got 17.5) sounds about right.

Still, some of that article is pretty dubious:

"Some things are too hot for a First Black President with no real allegiance to African Americans as a community to touch." - Bill Frist, psychoanalyst.

[ Parent ]
Another example of "100 Day" BS (0.00 / 0)
What is this fetish about "100 days"?!?  Why does anybody think that, after 8 years of incompetence at the top, President Obama can solve, or even lay out plans to solve, this many issues?

The BARC is based on 18 selected tasks/issues.  Now, the folks who created BARC selected these issues based on what they felt deeply about, or felt had the most impact on America.  They are to be congratulated and admired for putting together such a list and tracking the issues as well as they have.  

But how many issues does President Obama really have to work on?  Well over these select 18.  And how much time and effort can be spent on any of these when he has a severely damaged economy, broken financial system, and (don't forget) TWO wars to juggle?  On top of that, many of these issues have been broken more than 8 years.  
- Transportation and energy?  Carter tried to get us kick-started 30 years ago, but his efforts were overturned by Reagan's "we're America, we can do anything regardless of the long-term damages" view.  Clinton's economy let us further forget Carter's warnings (oh, the opportunities lost during those 8 years...).  And W was just a flat-out moron.
- Education?  I graduated from high school in 1980 in a rural district in Western New York.  A couple of years later I saw a ranking of the 125 high schools in WNY.  My high school almost made the top 100.  So, yes, education has been lacking for years.  President Obama cannot just wiggle his nose and correct it overnight.
- Environment?  GIVE ME A BREAK!  This one is an eight-year problem, but one thing W did well was destroy the levels of protection that had been set up over the years.  I had hopes that he would not do that when Chistine Whitman was put at the head of the EPA, but he broke her and rammed down his destructive forces.  A dozen folks magically wiggling their noses couldn't put much of a dent in correcting W's destruction in 100 days.

So, keep an eye on President Obama's administration and make sure he makes progress.  Don't sit back and let nothing happen.  But don't argue that "these types of report cards are the only way we'll keep him in line!".  No, these types of report cards catch the attention of the folks who feel strongly about one or two of the issues presented, who then note who created the BARC, and then give them money.  This is not a report card - it is the equivalent of NPR's pledge drives, and just as annoying.  (I do give to NPR annually).

He could renounce Cap & Trade right now in favor of carbon tax, and drop "Clean Coal" (4.00 / 5)
I don't understand this "there's nothing he can do about the environment in 100 days" stuff.  I have to believe, GWMjustGo, that neither you nor the other reader who say there's nothing he could do in 100 days just won't go th BAR and READ the damn article.  Here's the whole paragraph, not just the bit that Paul gave you...

The so-called "Cap And Trade" scheme favored by the Obama adminstration enacts the reprehensible suggestion of Obama advisor Larry Summers' that African and other less developed countries are "underpolluted" by establishing a corporate "right" to pollute, along with a financial market to buy, sell, trade and speculate on the value of these imaginary pollution "rights." It doesn't appear to have reduced carbon emissions in Europe, according to Dartmouth's Dr. Michael Dorsey, but it has made a lot of traders and speculators rich. , and is a product of the same market-as-solution-to-everything exhibited during the Bush years. A tax on carbon emission s would be more straightforward. No points there, and none for "clean coal" either.
The Obama adminstration gets a single point for talking up fuel economy standards and green jobs, with another thrown in for hope. One point out of five.

These ARE things he COULD have done in the first and CAN do in the next hundred days.  He could announce that Cap & Trade, which has already brought into existence a trading and futures market in "pollution rights" for insiders to manipulate -- think Enron -- and that he will go in the direction of taxing carbon.  He could say that he has reconsidered "clean coal" and decided there is no such thing.  And like Paul said, he could have DOJ drop or irretrievably bungle the case against the young man who disrupted the sale of wilderness lands in Utah.  

Either you did not read the article and are commenting on the merits of what you didn't read, or you imagine these are misguided suggestions, in which case you should address them when you contend there is nothing the president can do.  Which is it?

"If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other people, then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding..."
Zora Neale Hurston

[ Parent ]
bruce (4.00 / 1)
I agree with nearly everything you and Paul have said and we've linked to your post at West Virginia Blue.

However:

And like Paul said, he could have DOJ drop or irretrievably bungle the case against the young man who disrupted the sale of wilderness lands in Utah.

While I'd like to see the charges against the young man dropped as well, the decision most definitely should be made by DoJ and not by Obama. I don't want politicization of DoJ made by any president even when it would work to someone we side with just as I don't want Obama saying no to prosecutions of human rights violators in the previous administration. If Obama wants involvement in that case, it should be with his legal tools of clemency or pardon and not through sending a message to DoJ to bungle or drop the case.

Other than that, I'm with you.

They call me Clem, Clem Guttata. Come visit wild, wonderful West Virginia Blue

[ Parent ]
"Interference" vs. Ownership (4.00 / 4)
Two Things:

(1) If you don't want Obama involved in political micro-managing, that's one thing, and I can understand the reasoning.

But this is a very political Bush Administration holdover who is prosecuting the case.  It is, in fact, a continuation of the Bush Administration under Obama.

Why hasn't Obama asked for all such US Attorneys to resign?  He doesn't have to replace them all at once.  There are excellent senior staff in all the US Attorney offices who are perfectly capable of running things for as long as it takes to appoint replacements.  In fact, career attorneys have run some offices for years, not just months.  So there's no reason whatsoever for the Bush appointees to still be running things.

(2) This is a highly unusual case, as it arises directly out of a last-minute political move by the Bush Administration that has since been overturned by a court.  While it's a good general rule to keep the White House's hands off of the DOJ, this is a classic example of an exception that proves the rule.  By not stepping in to stop this prosecution, Obama is allowing the Bush Administration's prior politicization to continue unabated.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
Harsh, but useful (4.00 / 2)
Like others, I might quibble with the SCORING system Bruce Dixon is using here (compared to what, and all that) but I can't find a single place where I disagree with him when he points out areas where Obama could be doing better, maybe a lot better and where he's gone down the wrong path altogether.

In the critiques of No Child Left Behind, the usual critique is that the standards are unrealistic, and an unfair basis on which to base funding decisions, by an elite that really couldn't care less about educating non-elite children.  I agree with these critiques.

But similarly, to focus on the assessment of Obama may also be unrealistic, and, some may feel, unfair.  After all, it's not as if we have robust popular institutions getting sold out by an Obama who promised more.  Instead we have vague hope, largely getting dashed.  What were we expecting out of such a situation?  We don't have the strong network of robust popular organizations that could hold Barack Obama accountable effectively.

Still, the Black Action Report's yardstick has value.  It presses us all to remain dissatisfied and not blinded by the light of "hope", not resting on laurels.  It's MUCH more useful than the kind of thing that passes for political analysis by the likes of Keith Olbermann and too many others - making fun of Republican idiocy.  

More can be done.  At several points, already, Barack Obama has had bend back a little to the left from the centrist course he might have preferred, on secrecy and torture, on jobs.  The point is to magnify this pressure, and that would be the point whether Barack Obama is to be trusted or not.


sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

Obama: the last neo-liberal (4.00 / 5)
This is nicely put:

"After all, it's not as if we have robust popular institutions getting sold out by an Obama who promised more.  Instead we have vague hope, largely getting dashed.  What were we expecting out of such a situation?  We don't have the strong network of robust popular organizations that could hold Barack Obama accountable effectively."

The response to this, as I'm sure you have considered, is that Obama's election, and the cult of personality surrounding Obama, has preempted and continues to stunt the growth of precisely those independent institutions which are necessary to push for real change.

Furthermore, some of those who would otherwise be the most effective critics of Obama or Obamaism (e.g. Van Jones or Jared Bernstein) are now on the inside of the administration hoping for a few crumbs from the table to fall their way.

A while back I posted Ken Silverstein's favoring Clinton in the primaries on the grounds that with a Hillary presidency, the left could move directly into opposition without an intervening stage of disillusionment.

This prediction is now playing out, it seems to me.  I have no idea how long it will take for the left to come to its senses-or whether the planet can survive the final stages of neo-liberal corporate rule, which Obama is presiding over.


[ Parent ]
Some thoughts (0.00 / 0)
The left can NOW move into opposition without an intervening stage of disillusionment.  And Bruce Dixon's post is a prime example.  This IS the left.  The problem is, the left is small and weak and they're not pulling anyone along with them now.

Again, I ask, why isn't the "broader left" simply demanding what they want now, instead of worrying about moving into opposition or not?  Fight for what you want, without worrying about whether the President supports it.

I don't think things would look too much different if Hillary had won the election.  The left isn't strong enough to make much difference.  The general public would be similarly glad to have gotten rid of Bush and the GOP, and largely waiting to see what would happen next.

I ran into some old friends yesterday, active in Labor, who think something is going to happen soon on health care (though well short of single payer).  If they're right, Obama's score goes up.  If they're wrong, this may break the logjam you're perceiving and a more oppositional tone may start to emerge.  Somewhere along the line the camel's back will start to buckle.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

[ Parent ]
Not sure if I get the point. (4.00 / 3)
 On the fact of the matter, I don't agree that there would have been little difference if Hillary had won the nomination, particularly if she had played the super delegate card to win it.   Had she done so, there would have been legions of disillusioned Obamaites who would have been looking for an avenue to channel their rage at a rigged political system.  The would have been in the front ranks of the opposition.  With O's victory, the believe the system works and having invested so much in brand Obama, even with capitulation following capitulation they can't own up to their having been played for suckers yet again.

As it is, we will have to wait for each interest group to get shafted on their specific issue-as is almost certain to happen with respect to the groups you mention active on health care reform.  Only when the "public option" gets taken off the table will they be ready to start raising questions.  With Hillary-the leading recipient of pharmaceutical industry contributions-they would have had those questions from the beginning.

As for what we need to do now-it is the same as what we needed to be doing for the last two decades: developing a base of political power-both on the streets and in electoral politics-independent of the Democratic Party.

Hopefully, this lesson will be learned by the end of the Obama administration.


[ Parent ]
Then let me try once more (0.00 / 0)
Only when the "public option" gets taken off the table will they be ready to start raising questions.  

That's my point.

That and ... what happens if it ISN'T taken off the table?

As for the Hillary question, it's a two-edged sword.  Would more or less energy have been generated by a demoralized but less starry-eyed activist base?  It's an open question, but it's a false hypothetical and not the main issue anymore.

I perceive a slowly-rising level of disenchantment with Obama, still mixed with hope.  I still share some of those hopes myself.  What a couple of hundred leftists say on Open Left isn't going to determine anything.  Disillusionment has to become more widespread before it starts to matter.  I don't see the activists as holding a great wave back, I see them as waiting to see where the shoes are going to drop. There is a great wave out there, as Sirota likes to point out, but the process of extracting crumbs has to play out before something more significant develops.  

It's similar to the task union leaders face when deciding whether to strike - get all fiery and lead a walkout before you've extracted the true final offer and you could wind up in trouble with your base, for having led a suicidal charge.  Wait too long and you could also be in big trouble.

That balancing act is where I believe we are now.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

[ Parent ]
WTF? (4.00 / 2)
But similarly, to focus on the assessment of Obama may also be unrealistic, and, some may feel, unfair.  After all, it's not as if we have robust popular institutions getting sold out by an Obama who promised more.  Instead we have vague hope, largely getting dashed.  

What could be more realistic than making people much more specifically aware of this situation?  How can we possibly change things without understanding what, exactly, needs changing, and why and how?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

[ Parent ]
I wasn't criticizing the report (0.00 / 0)
I was standing in the middle somewhere.  The report is useful, BECAUSE it is specific.  Some may want to quibble with the grade, but regardless, the compendium is useful.  

My point is that the question of "assessment" and the question of "what needs to be changed" are separate.  Assessment is relative to some standard and people are disagreeing about what standard to use.  "What needs to be changed" is relative to reality and can be persuasive even to those who disagree with the standard Dixon is using.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

[ Parent ]
My Take... (4.00 / 1)
What has Obama really done in his first 100 days? - Not much good in my opinion!  Chris Hedges is right on target with his analysis - an excerpt:

"What, for all our faith and hope, has the Obama brand given us? His administration has spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and insolvent banks in a doomed effort to reinflate the bubble economy, a tactic that at best forestalls catastrophe and will leave us broke in a time of profound crisis. Brand Obama has allocated nearly $1 trillion in defense-related spending and the continuation of our doomed imperial projects in Iraq, where military planners now estimate that 70,000 troops will remain for the next 15 to 20 years. Brand Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, including the use of drones sent on cross-border bombing runs into Pakistan that have doubled the number of civilians killed over the past three months. Brand Obama has refused to ease restrictions so workers can organize and will not consider single-payer, not-for-profit health care for all Americans. And Brand Obama will not prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes, including the use of torture, and has refused to dismantle Bush's secrecy laws or restore habeas corpus."

I highly recommend reading the entire article here:

http://www.truthdig.com/report...

That amouint of bold text (4.00 / 3)
is actually more difficult for my eyes to read than regular text. Next time maybe you could use the blockquote function (the button that says "Quote" ) instead?
[ Parent ]
I thought Mr. Dixon was far too generous in doling out points. (0.00 / 0)
I'd have given Obama an absolute zero on each and every issue, particularly health care "reform" (see the following article from the likely-to-be-closed Boston Globe).  Other articles point out Obama's dismal records on urban housing and political corruption, both of which are intimately linked.  Stephen Lendman wrote an excellent comparison between FDR's first hundred days and Obama's, and the differences couldn't be plainer (or more disturbing).

Don't get me wrong; I am glad that someone out there is trying to give an honest evaluation of Obama's record.  But too many punches seem to be pulled even by Mr. Dixon.


Obama's First 100 Days--The Black Agenda Report Card | 50 comments
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